I learned that what triggered migraines was actually the stress I experienced while trying to cure them. I’m so conditioned to do more, to try harder, to overwork, that my brain would never stop hurting unless I rewired it and changed my approach altogether. The obsession with work was passed down from generation to generation in my family: My grandfather juggled owning a candy store and a coal mine, and refused to stop working until the day he died. My father inherited that work ethic. I remember waking up at two A.M. and going into the kitchen for a snack and seeing my dad wide awake, working at the kitchen table. He always carried around a yellow legal pad no matter where we went so he could work anytime, anywhere. We all of course have to work for money and meaning in our lives, but seeing a blueprint that glorified constant hustle, I confused work with my worth.
Looking back at all the headaches I had endured, I actually feel like they weren’t trying to hurt me; I feel like they were actually trying to help me. My brain stem was trying to tell me something, whether it was to slow down, take a nap, stop taking a pill, cancel my plans, break up with someone, not eat something, eat something, stop trying so hard to impress someone, drink water, get off my phone, do literally anything but what I was doing. Because my instinct was always to do more, in order to solve this problem, I basically had to stop trying so hard to solve this problem.
Since I had no synapses dedicated to this skill of doing less, what ultimately helped me overcome migraines was the inner child work I’ve told you about. And if you missed the eating disorder chapter, don’t worry, inner child work isn’t in violation of any child labor laws, it’s essentially connecting with your inner child.
Once I finally started to acquiesce to the needs of my inner child, my headaches lessened. As you may have noticed, kids don’t know or really care about what adults have on their schedules. They aren’t interested in how much money you make or how late you’re running for a meeting. They have not yet subscribed to our rat-race, hamster-wheel culture of self-abandonment. They don’t yet know that needy is a pejorative word, so when kids have to pee, they say they have to pee; when they’re hungry, they say they’re hungry. They have not yet learned to suppress their needs to impress people or pretend they’re fine because they’ve been brainwashed to believe that being needless is a sign of strength. They don’t walk on eggshells to be liked, so connecting with my inner child helped me redevelop the muscle of anticipating and addressing my own needs instead of worrying about someone else’s. This may all seem pretty obvious, but before inner-child work, I literally used to hold pee in for hours or skip eating if I felt either would inconvenience someone or slow down my work. Now that I have connected with my inner child, I don’t constantly feel like I’m in labor about to birth one.
Child Whitney has become my compass, and my headaches have become the strict parents I needed but never had. When I’ve overcommitted myself, date a guy who causes me anxiety, or pound Chinese food made almost entirely of chemicals and MSG, my headaches appear to scold me and steer me in another direction. It’s as if Google Maps had a feature where your phone electrocuted you whenever you got off on the wrong exit.
Maybe you don’t get headaches, but maybe your body talks to you in other ways. Maybe you get back pain, cold sores, anxiety. Something you think is idiopathic may actually be your inner child tugging on your shirt asking you to investigate or to slow down and make a different choice. Maybe your stomach hurts; maybe you’re sad and don’t know why; maybe you yell at people; maybe you can’t stop masturbating; maybe you dabble in Scientology. Whatever shape your pain takes, I hope you can see it as your body trying to communicate with you, perhaps to the point of rendering you immobile to force you to take it seriously.
Although at first I viewed my headaches as preventing me from living a full life, I now truly think my headaches protected me from far worse ramifications of my bad ideas. A lot of the time migraines kept me from engaging in unhealthy behavior. They made me go home and sleep when my instinct was to work until three A.M.; they guided me into a dark room instead of letting me hang out with a dark person. Because hangovers yielded migraines, my headaches also steered me away from alcohol, which is truly a gift given how addictive my personality is. Without migraines God knows what I’d be doing, what weirdo I would have married in Vegas, what unlucky kids I’d be badly parenting. Without headaches I’d probably be a full-blown hot mess, instead of the half-blown one I am now.
The search for a migraine cure taught me a lot of things I never would have learned otherwise. I learned about the workings of our brain, neurochemicals, and allergies. My migraines led me to do a lot of things that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred to me. Without trying to fix my brain, I never would have gotten my vision checked, for example. And thank God I did get contacts, because without them I’d still be oblivious to my unibrow and wearing foundation countless shades darker than my actual skin tone.
In order to heal my headaches, I had to stop thinking in terms of what I had to do; instead I had to start thinking in terms of what I had to stop doing. I was so programmed to do more, to try harder, to force solutions, and to go to the pharmacy for solutions that I didn’t even think of what I could eliminate instead of what I could add. Doing this made my life way more boring, but my headaches abated and so did the number of pill bottles that fell out of my purse on first dates.
• • •
My headaches also taught me a valuable lesson about my reaction to pain. It gives me chills now to think that my response to pain was to toughen up, then normalize it. I was so used to hearing “calm down,” “relax,” and “everything is fine” that I ended up believing it and doubting my own reality. I internalized my parents’ and their parents’ white-knuckle philosophy of ignoring pain. I’m not qualified to psychoanalyze what exactly happened to make me feel shame for suffering, but my reaction to having pain was embarrassment. I also didn’t want to feed the stereotype of women not being as tough as men, so I never wanted to show distress, and as an adult I wanted so badly to be low-maintenance, easy, and cool. But there’s nothing cool about being five thousand dollars in debt to an emergency room or puking out of a car on the freeway.
I shudder when I think about how quickly and easily I normalize pain, both physical and emotional. My headaches ended up becoming akin to what happens when you need to beat a lie detector test: Lying is stressful to the body, and the polygraph machine picks up on that by measuring your racing pulse, sweaty palms, dry mouth. Basically everything happening in your body when you take your hair extensions out to reveal your actual hair, or lack thereof, to a guy. The trick to beating the lie detector machine is not to become a better liar, but to become worse at telling the truth. That’s what it means to normalize an unacceptable situation. Also, criminals, you’re welcome for the hot tip.
Normalizing is how to beat a lie detector test, but not how to win at life, although these days going numb and martyring ourselves seems to have become the norm.
I’m not sure when having a high tolerance for pain became impressive or cool, but it’s neither. Pain is important information, and I can’t imagine there’s any pain that’s by accident. I’m not talking about the pain people are born with or the horrible diseases that make people needlessly suffer. And the fact that I need to qualify that is another example of normalizing pain! So often my inner monologue tells me to “stop complaining. It’s not like you have leukemia. Some people have real problems, you dummy ingrate!” Yes, there are people in way more pain than some of us, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore our own.
This trend of minimizing and even glorifying pain—emotional or physical—has got to stop. Nefarious adages we throw around like “no pain, no gain” are so deeply imbedded into our psyches that sometimes it doesn’t even occur to us that pain is your body’s form of giving you a warning. It’s our body telling us to “stop doing that and get out of there, ya goof.” And yes, I realize pain may yield results w
ith exercising, but anything past sore muscles is not okay to ignore.
I think it’s time we all reject the glamorization of tolerating pain. High heels, waist trainers, CrossFit, staying in painful relationships—these are all very masochistic. Yes, I know relationships technically take work, but I have a job, and unless a relationship is putting money into my 401(k), I can’t make working on it my main priority.
Recently it’s become cool to brag about how little sleep you got, how hard you work, how many pills you take, how often you’ve been sick. It seems the easier our lives are made by modern technology, the more people need to make up struggles for themselves. As recently as eighty years ago, and still today in many Third World countries, people really were sick pretty much all the time, and now that we finally have the means to be healthy, people seem to want to brag about being sick. I blame people who regram that stupid quote “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Whoever said that is either very stupid or had awesome painkillers. Also, it seems the only people who throw that quote around have not had anything come close to killing them, besides maybe me. This glorification of pain perpetuates the idea that our bodies are a machine we need to test, as opposed to a super fragile bag of skin full of important-as-shit organs.
From now on, I’m not going to minimize my pain. I will be loud about my discomfort. People might think I’m dramatic or annoying, but that’s okay, because you know what else is annoying? Feeling like someone is stabbing you in the brain all day. I will ignore the voices in my head telling me to “toughen up” and “calm down.” I’ll ask for help. And if the help sucks, I’ll ask someone else. I will not settle for help that is dismissive and unfocused. If someone casually throws pills at me instead of a long-term solution, then I’ll get down to business with a negative Yelp review.
Messing with neurochemistry is not a joke, people. This whole trend of giving anyone who walks into a doctor’s office antidepressants when that person isn’t clinically depressed is as crazy as getting tattoo lip liner. I’m not saying antidepressants don’t save millions of lives. I know many people who got their sanity, joy, and humanity back with the help of antidepressants; they’re a miracle for people who suffer from depression, but to take them if you’re not clinically depressed can distance you from the actual solution to your issue. For people who aren’t depressed, these pills can exacerbate the problem and pile on self-defeating side effects, which is what happened to me. Taking drugs when it’s not medically necessary is like putting diesel fuel in a gas car, which I have also done. I don’t recommend doing either.
Dismissing people, especially women, who have complicated ailments with pills is an age-old tradition and one that I think we should all challenge. As I watch one of my dear family members battle antibiotic resistance and many people I love grapple with various pill dependencies, I worry about what mindlessly taking pills does to our, well, mind.
My pain management aside, I’ve hit my limit in losing valuable people’s productivity and time to the side effects of unnecessary antidepressants, painkillers, and various avoidable sicknesses. I’ve seen friends lose their sparkle, their passion, motivation, and even sanity. How can we live our dreams if we can’t even dream because we’re in chemically induced stupors? Maybe freedom is as easy as not bottling it up and not relying on bottles.
I love technology and science as much as the next person, but it shouldn’t replace common sense and our body’s natural system of checks and balances. Before we had MRI machines and X-rays, we had a brilliantly designed nervous system telling us what worked and what didn’t quicker than the fastest Starbucks Wi-Fi.
Let’s make it sexy to say “ouch.” Let’s make it cool to say “uncle.” Let’s make it cool to say “I need help.” Don’t calm down. Don’t relax. Gals, there’s no honor in being a “good girl” anymore. And guys, don’t “man up” or “suck it up.” In general, stay away from anything up, including uppers, because, well, what goes up must come down.
Don’t say you’re okay when you’re not; don’t say you’re fine. I mean, I’m fine, but you don’t have to be.
THE PIT BULL CHAPTER
It’s always annoyed me that dogs are a “man’s best friend,” but diamonds are a “girl’s best friend.” This seems incredibly unfair. Men get awesome super cute pups and we get tiny sharp stones that just make people think we’re superficial and that we have to give back in a break-up? Diamonds have been a way better friend to men than they’ve been to women; they’re a great way to get laid and make an argument go away. To women, they’ve often been a substitute for actual love or a thing we have to worry might fall into a drain while we’re washing our hands. Honestly, if a man was to propose to me, I’d way rather he be holding a dog than a diamond ring that I’m just gonna misplace or end up putting on eBay.
I’d pick dogs over diamonds as my best friend any day. Growing up, I lived on a farm for a couple of years with eight and a half dogs and six horses, and they became my family. I don’t need to sell anyone on how awesome dogs are, but I do feel the need to defend the breed I tend to spend the most time with: pit bulls. At the time I’m writing this I have three pit bulls, but by the time this comes out, I’m sure you will have already seen me on the show Hoarders with way more.
I never cease to be heartbroken by some people’s visceral reaction to pit bulls. One time my FedEx guy came to my door, and when he saw one of my dogs through the window, he dropped my package and ran to his truck, yelling “No pit bull!” He has a body like a brioche, so it was actually kind of funny to watch him run, but when I really processed it, I couldn’t believe someone could have such an intrinsically terrified reaction to an animal that’s well-trained, behind glass and a gate, and sleeps in bed with a girl who uses three-pound weights in Spin class.
Did he really think my dog was going to maul him to death? I mean, this guy had actual terror in his eyes of a dog who gets, like, 10K likes on Instagram based on his sweet face alone.
Look, I’m not saying be an ignorant moron. Having a respectful fear of animals with sharp teeth is always wise. I’m circumspect around every new dog I come across. If you ever see me meet a dog for the first time, especially when I’m walking into its home, I never touch its head right away or invade its space. I hold my ground and let it decide if it wants to hang out with me. It usually does, thank God, and if it doesn’t, you’ll have to witness me having a pretty intense emotional meltdown, but smothering dogs you don’t know is never a good idea. In addition to disregulating the dog, it also makes people think you’re very lonely. I think in general we all tend to approach dogs as if they’re toys; we’re too aggressive and feel too entitled to their bodies. If someone I didn’t know came up to me on the street and started palming my face, I’d immediately punch them in the neck and karate-chop them until they died of confusion. I try to give dogs that same respect, because for all I know, they may have an injury they need to protect or have an obtuse owner who, while trying to be “nice” to the dog, didn’t train it to have discipline around strangers.
There’s no doubt that pit bulls cast a larger cultural shadow in America than any other breed of dog. They’re often misunderstood, misrepresented, and mistreated, but like the sexy hot vampires in teen emotional-porn movies, they’re also idealized, romanticized, and pathologized. They’re one of the most popular breeds in America, yet they’re also outlawed in some states and shunned in others, depending on the year or even month. They’re sorta like the McRib, except I’d actually let a pit bull near my mouth.
As a “type” of dog, pit bulls have always been part-breed/part-brand. I actually didn’t even know until pretty recently that pit bulls aren’t even a real breed. There is no true “purebred” pit bull: they’re usually a mix of the American Staffordshire terrier, bull terrier, and bulldog. They’re the anti-breed breed, which is part of their beauty to me. They’re like the America of dogs, comprised of many different backgrounds, shapes,
and sizes. Also, like America, a pit bull can be seen as, well, a bully.
To be very clear in terms of the history of pit bulls, many have absolutely been bred to fight. I’ll stay away from the more gruesome details, but as early as the 1830s they were selected and bred to have large jaw muscles in their heads and a very high arousal rate, which means they can go from 0 to 60 incredibly fast. If a pit bull were a car, it would be a Porsche. I don’t know that much about cars, so if there’s a sports car that can accelerate faster than a Porsche, then a pit bull would be whatever car that is. I hate comparing them to sports cars because whatever car I select, it’s probably driven by a man with hair plugs having a midlife crisis, but I think it’s a useful metaphor nonetheless.
Because pit bulls have essentially been bred to be weapons, they can and will literally fight to the death if they’re trained by a terrible person to do so or are defending their own lives. They’re born with the tools and the body to be wildly successful at violence, but they aren’t born with an inherent desire or need to be violent toward people. In fact, the tragic irony of their fighting heritage is that they were also selected to have an inherently low incidence of aggressiveness toward humans. Dog handlers who had to step in and pull their dogs out of the fighting pit didn’t tolerate dogs that would go after people. People who run dogfights are incredibly sick and stupid, but I guess not stupid enough to put themselves in danger, so the result of it all is that breeders created one of the most tragic creatures there is: an animal with the teeth of a shark, the muscles of a lion, and the heart of a teddy bear.
I'm Fine...And Other Lies Page 20